Tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET, the New York Islanders (18-23-7, 43 points) and the Tampa Bay Lightning (28-15-4, 60 points) skate against each other for the second of three meetings live from the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Florida. The game can be live streamed here. New York fans can hear all of the bone-crunching action on WRHU 88.7 while Tampa Bay fans can do the same on WFLA 970.
New York enters the fifth contest of a six-game road trip and had their seven-game road winning streak snapped last time out while Tampa Bay has alternated wins and losses through its last six. The first time these two teams met, the Lightning topped the Islanders 3-2 in a shootout on Dec. 17 in Long Island.
For Tampa Bay, Thursday will be Victor Hedman's milestone 300th game.
"I'm extremely impressed at how much he thinks everything out now," Lightning coach Jon Cooper told the team website. "Now he has the confidence to make these plays and that's where he's really matured."
New York has three come-from-behind wins so far through four games on their current road trip.
"I think it's just being better prepared mentally," forward Colin McDonald told Newsday. "Especially on the road, you know the home team wants to get off to a fast start. Instead of sitting back and waiting, we need to take a different mindset."
The Islanders have been led by captain John Tavares (21-35-56), Kyle Okposo (19-27-46) and Thomas Vanek (16-24-40) while Tampa Bay has been paced by captain Martin St. Louis (20-24-44), Valtteri Filppula (18-18-36) and Teddy Purcell (9-20-29). St. Louis has a five-game point streak heading into tonight's game.
In net, Kevin Poulin is likely to start for New York and is 9-13-0 with a 3.12 GAA and a .895 save percentage while Ben Bishop will likely start for Tampa Bay and is 23-5-3 with a 1.83 GAA and a .937 save percentage.
The Islanders look to continue their road trip in strong fashion while Tampa Bay looks for some consistency when these teams faceoff tonight in Tampa Bay.
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